Features Conflict Minerals and the Democratic Republic of Congo: Expanding Supply Chain Efforts
Over the past few years, companies, NGOs and governments increasingly have been concerned about “conflict minerals” from the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the surrounding region. These materials—tin, tantalum, tungsten and...

Expert Perspectives The Naked Corporation
A decade ago, transparency was considered an option and modesty was seen as an asset. No longer. For companies today, the question isn’t whether they should be forthcoming about their environmental and social impacts, commitments and achievements...

Expert Perspectives The Power of Zero
2012 will be a milestone year for sustainability, with the 20th anniversary of the UN Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro marked by another major event in the city and the 25th anniversary of the Brundtland Commission, which began the mainstreaming of...

Expert Perspectives Sustainable Value Creation
The era of CEO mandate to maximize shareholder value is giving way to the era of whole-company mandate to maximize stakeholder value. This shift is occurring because all facets of society—citizens, employees, local community activists and...

Expert Perspectives Integrated Reporting: From Concept to Reality
Integrated reporting—which merges traditional financial reporting with sustainability reporting—has shot up the global agenda quickly, emerging from relative obscurity two years ago. As cofounder of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), a...

EHS Training Units Completed
GE tracks completion of the number of regulatory-required training classes each employee must attend for the calendar year (a unit is one course for one person). More than 2 million units of training were completed in 2010, with more than 627,000...

Metrics Excellence Programs & External Recognition
As of year-end 2010, GE had 236 facilities covering more than 109,800 employees in global excellence recognition programs, including: 119 U.S. OSHA VPP Star sites (GE has more sites than any other general industry participant in the program) 18...

Workplace Injury & Illness
GE’s goal is to continuously improve on injury and illness reduction. In 2010, GE’s Global Total Recordable Rate decreased 3.5% to 1.11 injuries per 100 employees and the Company’s Global Lost Time Rate decreased by 11% to 0.31 cases per 100...

Features Public-Private Partnerships: A Critical Tool for Driving Corporate Citizenship
Public-private partnerships (PPPs) that pair companies, the public sector, and civil society can enhance true coordination, use resources efficiently, and eliminate duplicated efforts to deal with some of society’s toughest social and...

2010 Highlights
Strategy In the past 10 years, GE has repositioned its portfolio through divestitures representing 50% of the Company to focus on key global themes such as energy, water and healthcare, and built strength in the core businesses of providing the...